Briggs & Stratton Corporation (BGG), a company that manufactures, markets, sells, and services gasoline engines for outdoor power equipment yesterday reported their fiscal fourth quarter 2017 financial results.

Briggs reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.46 per share which fell short of analyst expectations of $0.52 per share. They also reported fourth quarter revenues of $474.1 million which fell short of analyst expectations of $538 million.

Briggs & Stratton Corporation CEO’s  Comments

“We achieved earnings within our guidance range for fiscal 2017 on the meaningful progress made to diversify our business and drive operational excellence,” stated Todd J. Teske, Briggs & Stratton’s Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer.  “During the year, we delivered strong sales growth in commercial products and commercial engines to gain share and improve gross profit margins.  New, innovative products, with the features our customers want, also contributed to profitability and our success in maintaining our leadership position in engines.” Teske continued, “Lower-than-expected shipments of residential outdoor power equipment and engines resulted from certain North America channel partners making unexpected changes to their merchandising and inventory stocking levels during the spring selling season compounded by regional pockets of suboptimal growing conditions. We have observed improved growing conditions throughout the season but continue to see a cautious approach to reordering as channel partners have focused on controlling inventory to abnormally low levels.  Looking ahead, we remain optimistic about the future, as reflected in the outlook for fiscal 2018, as well as today’s announcement of our business optimization program, which will drive further advancements in operational excellence and provide capacity for the production of high-growth products.”  PR Newswire

BGG Technical Analysis

(Click on image to enlarge)

BGG opened trading yesterday at $23.84 which was up from the previous day’s trading close of $23.80. BGG closed trading yesterday at $24.09 and spiked down after market to $21.50, equivalent to an 11% decrease from the closing price. Taking a look at the daily chart we can see the last time BGG traded below these levels we have to go back to April 20th when it traded at lows of $21.48.

Taking a closer look at the daily chart we can see that before the spike down BGG had already been in an overall downward trend dating back to April 27th when it traded at $25.45. BGG has a float of 41.39 million shares and traded 1.54 times the normal daily trading volume on Wednesday.